Campus reacts to new iPhone X features

A bigger screen, a better camera, no home button, and a new facial recog­nition feature are exciting the Hillsdale College com­munity about the new iPhone X, which went on sale on Nov. 3.

Although few people on campus have upgraded to the iPhone X, many have heard about its design and new fea­tures.

Junior Zane Miller, who bought the iPhone X, said he adjusted quickly to the iPhone’s changes such as Face ID, which can unlock the device by rec­og­nizing the user’s face, and the lack of a home button.

“After day one, I was already used to swiping instead of tapping the home button to get every­where, and I’ve been using iPhones since my dad got the iPhone 3GS in 2009,” Miller said.

Some may still be skep­tical of the new Face ID, but Miller said he finds it easy to use.

“Face ID works super well,” Miller said. “It took about a day of use to get it to really learn my face, but now it almost always works.”

He added that the passcode option alle­viates any worry of getting locked out of the phone on the off chance that Face ID mal­func­tions.

Since the phone uses infrared light to scan the user’s face, Miller said one drawback he has found is that the phone some­times struggles to scan his face in direct sun­light.

“Con­trary to what you might think, it works best in the dark. The phone projects infrared light on your face and reads its reflection to create a scan, so it’s actually hardest to get it to work in direct sun­light when there is infrared light to poten­tially interfere,” Miller said. “I haven’t noticed more than once or twice when this has been an issue so far, and the last few days have been fairly sunny. At night, there’s nothing to interfere with the IR beams, so it works per­fectly then.”

According to Apple, the iPhone X houses some of the most sophis­ti­cated tech­nology the company has developed, including the cameras and sensors for Face ID.

Miller said this is the best camera he has ever seen on a smart­phone and he loves this new upgrade from the camera on his iPhone 6S Plus.

“The colors are super accurate, and the photos are a whole lot sharper,” Miller said.

Assistant Pro­fessor of Phi­losophy Blake McAl­lister, who also has the new iPhone X, has only used it for a few days but said he finds it easy to nav­igate — even without a home button.

“The home key is almost never missed,” McAl­lister said. “Nav­i­gation is fast and buttery smooth. For a super­ficial phone user like me, that’s basi­cally just what I’m looking for.”

He also is a fan of the bigger screen.

“The screen is stunning,” McAl­lister said. “The edge-to-edge display pro­vides a sleeker, more immersive expe­rience. The screen is as big as the one on my 6 Plus, but the phone feels way slimmer.”

McAl­lister, like Miller, said he finds the facial recog­nition accurate and pretty easy, but he said he still thinks that the fin­ger­print unlock feature may be a little more con­ve­nient while adjusting to the new phone.

“The exe­cution is flawless — it rec­og­nizes me every time,” McAl­lister said. “The most annoying part is that you can’t easily see the content of your noti­fi­ca­tions or unlock the phone when it’s laying on the table beside you. You have to pick it up or awk­wardly lean over the table. Touch ID may actually be a hair more con­ve­nient, but the edge-to-edge display is likely worth the exchange.”

Not everyone is a fan of the new phone’s upgrades. Although she doesn’t own the new phone, junior Hannah Socolofsky said the home button on pre­vious iPhone models pro­vided dis­tinction for the design.

“I think it looks too much like other brands of phones, like Samsung, that have the control panel at the bottom,” Socolofsky said. “Apple is usually focused on setting itself apart and so it frus­trates me that it’s trying to assim­ilate.”